One cool fruit lover

Bernardo "Bernie" Dizon is not your usual fruit grower. With the right technology, he makes poor land productive for fruit-bearing trees in a shorter time. He has also the knack for adapting exotic fruit trees to local climactic and soil conditions. The fruit specialist, a pomologist at the Central Luzon State University-Fruit Research and Technology Center (CLSU-FRTC) in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija has been propagating the idea that high value fruit trees are the prized agri-concerns of the future as a prospective export commodity. His love for fruit culture and propagation has been nurtured for 40 years now.

Dizon’s fruit growing mission has taken him to several parts of the country. First off, the experimental fruit farm that he manages for the CLSU-FRTC is a source of joy for the country’s fruit growers not only for its quality seeds but also for the valuable knowledge on productivity that it disseminates. In the plantation are high-value fruit trees: durian, lychee, longan, orange varieties, mango and sweet tamarind, among several others. Too, he runs his own Dizon Fruit Research and Techno Demo Center. He was responsible, too, for the UP Bliss Ecology Garden, a fruit research and demonstration projects of the UP Bliss Community Association in 1988 where he showed that imported fruit-bearing trees can be grown in the city and the country.

Then, there was this 500-square meter wasteland turned into experimental fruit garden in the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Nature Center near the Elliptical Road, Quezon City; its use for demonstration was granted him by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in 1992. Visitors to the botanical park during fruiting season will be greeted by a fruit paradise abloom either with flowers or fruits of mangoes and macopa, as well as exotic fruits like lychees, durian, oranges, rambutan etc.

According to Dizon, the demo garden gives a cool, green, relaxing view to promenaders in the heart of city — the capital of the Philippines, no less. For the farmers, orchard owners, interested backyard growers, the showcase experimental fruit garden will serve as a readily accessible demonstration center for modern technology on the propagation, culture and growing of fruit trees. Morevoer, interested parties can learn the modern techniques in the culture of traditional and non-traditional exotic trees which will disprove the notion that foreign stocks of fruit trees cannot thrive qualitatively and profitably in the country. It is also a plant and technology exchange venue on local and imported varieties.

Dizon, the agricultural scientist, is a proponent of propagating fruit trees with double and triple rootstocks. The new plants are sturdier, faster-growing and earlier fruiting than ordinary grafted plants with single rootstock. He teaches inarching and the latest grafting technique: crown grafting which he applies to millennium mango, Guimaras mango, varieties of chico, mangosteen, rambutan, longkong, duku lanzones, lychee, oranges (longan, ponkan, sunkist and hamlin), apple macopa, pummelo (Davao and Magallanes varieties), pears, grape, apple, bigger-fruiting paniyur variety of black pepper, among others. He is credited with the development and propagation of such fruits as miracle grapes, giant calamansi, seedless atis and oranges.

Aside from the CLSU fruit farm, Dizon’s own techno-farm and the fruit garden in the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center, and the UP Bliss Ecology Garden, the plant expert also maintains other techno-demo farms in Teresa, Rizal and Candelaria, Quezon. He is also consultant to a number of fruit growers and LGU projects.

Among those who/which sought Dizon’s expertise are Sen. Edgardo Angara (former agriculture secretary); mango tree plantation owner Arnold Aguilar in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija; Millie Kilayko (Sweet Greens Nursery), Michael Trebol (whose family owns a 23-hectare orchard of rambutan, pummelo and santol and was interested in adding Magallanes pummelo), and ECJ Farm (biggest durian plantation in the country) in Negros; Engr. Telesforo L. Umali of Quezon City (Maharlika rambutan) and many others.

He has also given technical services to the high-value fruit tree production of the city administration of Cabanatuan City; the planning and development agency of Calapan, Oriental Mindoro. He helped set up a fruit research center some years back in Barangay Anupul, Bamban, Tarlac.

Unlike other experts who have developed certain techniques, Dizon is not one who keeps his knowledge to himself. Every so often, he conducts a free lecture on his latest discoveries at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center. Attended by eager participants from as far north as Batanes to as far down south as Jolo, the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center has become a Mecca of sorts for those who plan to set up fruit tree plantations.

Bernie Dizon’s love affair with plants blossomed when he was still in high school at the Sabani Agricultural College in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija. While there at the laboratory farms during school days he developed an interest in fruit trees which continued during his stint at the Central Luzon State University during which time he specialized in plant nutrition — rice, corn, and vegetable.

Over time, he landed a job as farm manager of Roxas y Cia in Nasugbu, Batangas overseeing sugar and rice plantations. At the same time, he provided extension services to other projects of the company — coconut, coffee and citrus farms. About the same time, he took time to study commerce in a college in Batangas City.

In April 12, 1993, Dizon signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with CLSU president Fortunato Battad for seven years; this was later extended to 25 years. Among the provisions: "The university will assist in the promotion and marketing of fruits and planting materials" to which Dizon dedicated a good portion of his life.

A multi-awarded agriculturist, Dizon honed up on his farm management savvy, plant research and propagation through his academic education and long years of experience. He is a recipient of the Don Andres Soriano Memorial research scholarship at the CLSU, a university award and other citations from civic organizations as an outstanding agriculturist in the country bringing the fruit sector to higher level of productivity and consciousness among fruit entrepreneurs.

Dizon explains his love affair with fruit trees in this wise: "Ecology-wise, fruit tree plantings have far more beneficial effects for mankind. For me. I shall always plant a tree whose shade and fruits will bless me with lots of benefit. Steel structure rust and corrode but my trees will blossom and nurture others after me." Sounds like, "I think I shall never see a thing lovely as a tree."